Month of Superhero Film Reviews: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

17Jun

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Day #17 of my Month of Superhero Film Reviews! During this month I’ll be reviewing of some of the best and worst comic book adapted films. Recently talked about Ghost Rider, one of the worse comic book adaptations in recent years, now we’re gonna talk about the even more disgusting sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

I had avoided this film for a good while because I heard it was a disgusting excuse of a film that was worse than the original.

In terms of the plot is goes something like this:

“In Eastern Europe, a commando led by Ray Carrigan attacks a fortress protected by monks to abduct the boy Danny. However his mother Nadya rescues him while the priest Moreau protects them riding his motorcycle and they escape. Moreau seeks out Johnny Blaze and offers to set him free of his Ghost Rider curse provided he protects Danny from Roarke, with whom Johnny made a deal years ago to save his father. Meanwhile Ray subdues Nadya, but the Ghost Rider finds them and fights against Ray’s gang. However, Ray uses a powerful weapon against the Ghost Rider and succeeds in abducting Danny. When Johnny Blaze awakes in the hospital, he joins to Nadya and Moreau to save Danny from Roarke and Ray.”

For some reason the film is set in another location and is a reboot rather than a continuation and while that’s a good idea considering that crappy film that preceded this one, you have a whole new set of problems with this one. The story here is supposed to be serious, different and unrelated to the source material, but those are the factors that make it so lame. I really wasn’t paying attention to what was going on half the time on the count of how bored I was.

Now let’s talk about the cast. Somehow Nicolas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider, and he is even worse than he was in the last film. Because of the more serious nature in this film it makes for a much more boring, bland and weak main character. Johnny Whitworth as Ray Carrigan/Blackout, this character was very generic, uncharismatic and not interesting at all as the villain. As for Fergus Riordan and Violante Placido as Nadya and Danny, they were so uninteresting and dull that I just wasn’t interested in what happened to them.

Ciarán Hinds for some reason replaces Peter Fonda as Roarke aka Mephisto, this character is wasted and it is not properly utilized from the source material. Even my man Idris Elba is in this film as Moreau, why in the hell is someone of Elba’s quality in this film. He was good in Thor and then somehow he found his way into this film and while he’s not that terrible, he was forgettable. And lastly for some reason Christopher Lambert was in this film as some senior monk as Methodius, his character wasn’t necessary.

Now let’s talk about the presentation. Visually this film adopts a new style of filming with dynamic camera angles, tracking shots and a much swifter pace. However for all its new fancy features it doesn’t help the fact that the action for the most part is lame, unremarkable and not very cool. I do have to say that Ghost Rider himself looks a lot more menacing and dangerous, but his transformation scenes are crap and I’m not overly keen on his new costume and miss the look from the comics. As for the soundtrack by David Sardy is just weak, not even worth mentioning.

And lastly how does it compare to the comics? This film feels even less like the comics than the first film due to its look, style and use of comic characters whose origins had changed completely so that they became useless.

So to conclude Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a film so foul that most people don’t even know it exists. The people who did watch it just forgot about it and tried to make sure that no one else remembered it either. It is that bad. Somehow Nic Cage was allowed to come back to this character and fuck it up a SECOND TIME! This was the film that ultimately shut down the Ghost Rider character and made it impossible for any future films to be made in the near future. I want to see another Ghost Rider film, that’s faithful to the comics and under Marvel Studios now that they have the rights back, but I don’t think that’ll be for a long time.

Rating: 3/10 (Somehow this sequel sucks even worse than the original)

So there’s my review people, only 13 more to go. So have you seen Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeanceand if so what are your thoughts on it? Drop me a comment and let me know your thoughts yo! Come back tomorrow and I’ll have a new film review online, until then peace out!